I’ve been designing book covers a long time. Above is the oldest one I know. Have I gotten any better at it or peaked at the start? Your call.
My first two published books used my artwork but were put together by others. The first, by Isaac Tobin, is really good; the second isn’t worth talking about.
Five years passed between that disaster and Music to My Eyes. This is the first proper book cover I made. I chose the paper that mimics cloth, scrawled the name and author in my shitty handwriting, and solicited, then typeset the blurbs. This is the last book I bothered with blurbs. There was a recent article once again questioning whether they serve any purpose. I tend to think they don’t do much good. They force a writer or their publisher into the embarrassing position of asking someone famous or influential for something they don’t benefit in any way from giving. It’s a lose-lose. That said, I’m grateful to the brilliant trio who took the time to spill a little ink on my behalf.
With Soviet Stamps, I began a run of five years of self-published books. This meant, for better or worse, that I could do whatever I wanted design-wise. There was no one to object or to consult with about my choices.
Old Style is probably the high water mark of the series of foil-stamped hardcovers I made. It’s certainly the one that’s sold the best, for whatever that’s worth.
All Hack happened mostly due to COVID lockdown. It was a look back and reedit of my first two books, the ones I had least say in producing. It’s a kind of do-over. A corrective.
Then I grew restless. I’d started making collages during lockdown and wanted to try that out in a book. The result is a thing almost no one cared about. I still have some affection for paint-by-numbers but maybe it’s like the tender feelings one has for a lame child.
Mallory asked me to design a cover for her book, so I did.
Then, I guess Nate liked that one enough to make another for his press for a different book. I wish more writers or publishers would ask me to work on their books. I’d like to do more.
To Whom it May Concern turned out to be another moribund project for reasons I won’t rehash. Another failure I like. Maybe someone will find a copy in some thrift store trash heap and write something smart about it after I’m long gone.
Within the budgetary constraints I set, this art retrospective book came out pretty well. But I wish I had a lot fewer copies of it left than I do. This was a kind of breaking point for the mode of self-publishing I’d been committing over the previous four or five years. The prospect of boxes and boxes of books taking up space for years became unbearable. I had to find another way.
The answer came via an article about tech assholes claiming to profit off public domain classics.
Now I’m neck-deep in refashioning old books into new ones. I can focus on art and design with a little social commentary thrown in for good measure. It’s a relief not to actually be writing these books just as it’s a relief not to have to store mountains of them in the hope that someone will one day want them.
These new books don’t even exist until someone pays for them to be printed. I had to make a pact with the devil to make that possible but I’m not sorry. At least I get to keep making book covers.
Here’s one I’m working on now…
